Regional bids absent from national eco-towns shortlist

3 April 2008 12:21 Comments (0)

Not one North West local authority has made it through to the next stage of the much vaunted contest to become a pilot affordable housing eco-town.

Housing minister Caroline Flint today announced 15 potential locations that will go forward to the next stage. The shortlisted sites include former MoD land, military depots, disused airfields and former mining pits and industrial sites.

They are: Pennbury, Leicestershire; Manby and Strubby, Lincolnshire; Curborough, Staffordshire; Middle Quinton, Warwickshire; Bordon-Whitehill, Hampshire; Weston Otmoor, Oxfordshire; Ford, West Sussex; Imerys China Clay Community, Cornwall; Rossington, South Yorkshire; Coltishall, Norfolk; Hanley Grange, Cambridgeshire; Marston Vale and New Marston, Bedfordshire; Elsenham, Essex; Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire; Leeds City Region, Yorkshire.

More than 40 proposals, believed to have included several sites in Greater Manchester including Wigan and east Manchester, and Birkenhead in the Liverpool city region, have not been taken forward for "being undeliverable or not ambitious enough to meet the high environmental and affordability standards set by Government".